Thousands of demonstrators gathered for a march in Moscow Jan. 13 to protest against a ban on Americans adopting Russian children, saying President Vladimir Putin's government had made orphans pawns in a political dispute. Russia has since announced they are considering also banning couples from countries where same-sex marriage is legal.

Photo: Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin

Four months after Russia announced it would be banning all further adoptions of Russian orphans by U.S. couples, a decision for which they were almost universally panned, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia may “amend existing agreements” to outlaw adoption by couples from countries where same-sex marriage is legal.

In other words, a couple from France, where same-sex marriage was just freshly legalized, would not be allowed to adopt a Russian baby because the chance that said baby would grow up with two moms or dads (as opposed to no parents at all) would be “detrimental to the child,” politician Marina Orgeyeva said. Responding to Orgeyeva’s statement, Putin merely said, “She’s right.”

"We have to react to what's going on around us,” Putin explained during a meeting with legislators, as reported by Russian outlet Rosbalt. “We respect our partners but also ask that they respect our culture's ethical traditions, our legal and moral standards. I believe we have the right to make amendments.”

Earlier in the week, Putin paid a visit to popular Russian TV call-in program “Direct Line” and discussed the same topic with his constituents. The program ran for a record 4 hours and 48 minutes, during which time Putin took 86 questions, Russian outlet Vesti and the BBC reports. Putin said it is impossible to apply European attitudes toward same-sex marriage in Russia. "Europe has its own standards, the USA has theirs, but our society is different,” he said. “Our country is enormous and multinational; it would be impossible to implement all [Western standards] here.”